Toyota has lost a patent appeal concerning the hybrid technology used in the Prius.
Toyota was sued by Paice LLC over the use of a microprocessor which accepts torque information from the electric motor and petrol engine. The court had awarded £2.1 billion to the company and the US Supreme Court has turned away the appeal made by Toyota. The award will cost £12.50 for every Prius, Highlander and Lexus RX400h sold.
The result might have been worse for the Japanese carmaker. The court might have asked the carmaker to stop producing the hybrid models until the trial was finished. There were three patents in question, though only one of Paice’s patents was ruled to be infringed upon.
There are two other possible problems for Toyota and their hybrid technology, one from Solomon technologies and the other from a seventy-five year old engineer in Seattle named Conrad Gardner. Gardner argues that the hybrid vehicles produced by Toyota could not operate without his invention. U.S. patent 7,290,627 called “Extended range motor vehicle having ambient pollutant processing” — is a computer control system that shifts power to the internal combustion engine or electric motor.
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